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Time runs out for Cinderella as the spectacular clock strikes twelve . . . Pictures: Katja Ogrin Cinderella Birmingham Royal Ballet Birmingham Hippodrome ***** A favourite fairy tale is brought to wonderful life in this magical, beautifully danced production, packed with laugh out loud fun, petulant baddies and a romance that finally triumphs against all odds. Cinderella is much more than a go to panto, it is a folk tale told around the world with origins going back more than two millennia to the ancient Greeks, and this wonderful production tells the now familiar tale in elegant style, opening with a nod to its darker fairy tale origins. Sir David Bintley’s now well-established version starts with the sombre funeral of Cinderella’s mother with Cinderella’s hopes and dreams seemingly buried with her as we see her evil stepmother and her two awful daughters rising through the gloomy scene like a gruesome phoenix, Japan’s Yu Kurihara is a delight as Cinders managing to play two characters in one as first the downtrodden, unloved stepdaughter, subject to every cruel whim of her stepmother and peevish step siblings, then she becomes the beautiful, elegant and mysterious princess at the Prince’s ball. She excels at both with wonderful precise footwork, giving us despair, hope and finally elegance in a fine display of both technique and acting and, let’s be honest, it would be a strange prince indeed who failed to fall for her. Daria Stanciulescu reprises her role as the stepmother dancing with all the ominous elegance and menace of a hungry cobra in a deliciously evil performance. The Romanian born dancer is making a name for herself as a baddie, having played the evil fairy Carabosse in BRB’s The Sleeping Beauty last year. She is just so good at being bad! This is no panto, so there is no cheeky chappie Buttons to soften Cinderella’s plight and the stepsisters are neither ugly nor blokes in frocks in this dameless telling of the tale. Instead we have the far from ugly pair Australian Eilis Small, emphasising the international make up of this company, and Elmhurst Ballet School graduate Olivia Chang Clarke. The sisters have changed over the years. In the 2010 world premiere and the 2017 production the sisters were Skinny and Dumpy, with Dumpy encased in enough padding to pass muster as an ice hockey keeper.
Lachlan Monaghan as The Prince and Yu Kurihara as Cinderella Now they are just nameless, ordinary (in the loosest sense of the word) stepsisters and what fun they bring gracing the stage, at times, with all the precision footwork and movement that would make Bambi on ice look like Margot Fonteyn in her prime. The sisters are more stupid than sinister, with a penchant for tormenting Cinderella . . . and each other in a wonderful comedy double act providing us with laugh out loud fun. It is easy to dance badly, as any accomplished dad dancer will attest, but to dance badly well, if you see what I mean, is a talent indeed and this pair show it with a remarkable level of skill, they are wonderfully hopeless showing commendable style. Their attempt to master the niceties of dance for the Prince’s ball in their lesson with ballet master, Riku Ito, is ballet slap stick while at the ball their scene stealing performances, a mix of prince hunting and gluttony, is comedy gold. Cinderella’s rescuer is her Fairy Godmother danced with a matronly reassurance by Tori Forsyth-Hecken. We first see her as she mysteriously appears as a cold, hungry old woman warming herself by the fire in the family kitchen. Now you might think this strange old woman suddenly popping up in the kitchen might raise the odd tiny query from Cinders, but, then again logic has never been a strong point of fairy stories. Anyhow Cinders’ kindness to her is repaid in spades as the old woman is revealed as the Fairy Godmother promising her young charge a brighter future and, with a wave of her wand, produces a silver fairy coach driven by Frog Coachman Tom Hazelby, assisted by Lizard Footmen Mason King and Marlo Kempsey-Fagg along with a pair of mice pages, Hollie Francis and Olivia Duong. to take Cinderella to the ball We even get an appearance by the four seasons, Spring, Reina Fuchigami; Summer, Céline Gittens; Autumn, Sofia Liñares; and Winter, Rachele Pizzillo adding an extra element with classy solos to proceedings as Cinderella climbs aboard her silver coach to head to the ball. And what is a ball without a handsome Prince, here in the shape of another Australian, Lachlan Monaghan, who brings athleticism and regal elegance to the role. He spends half his ball trying to avoid the attentions of the clutches of the stepsisters who are determined to grab a trophy prince, or, as a sort of second prize, when he vanishes they turn their amorous attentions to Rory Mackay making a return as the Major Domo. The Prince and Cinderella blend beautifully in their pas de deux, first at the ball and then the finale, dancing as one in a most pleasing pairing. The ball also brings the magnificent clock backdrop to the stage in a production that cost a million pounds or so to stage back in 2010, when it was Bintley’s gift to the city to mark the twentienth anniversary of the ballet’s move to Birmingham. As midnight approaches the spinning cogs slide in to fill the rear of the stage to tick off the seconds while Cinders’ transforms from beautiful princess in ball gown to scullery maid in rags fleeing into the night as the clock strikes twelve leaving behind a silver, sparkly slipper. Now the more observant in the audience might ask why Cinders as the Princess dances, quite beautifully we must add, in pink satin ballet shoes yet loses a sparkly silver shoe as she flees . . . but that’s fairy tale magic for you. And that takes us to the find the foot that fits the shoe hunt with more laughs until the Prince discovers Cinders hidden in a corner and she has the only foot that fits. Cue finale pas de deux and we leave our happy couple walking off, Western movie style, into the sunset. The setting from the gloomy kitchen to the starlit skies, the elegant ballroom, and symbolic, skeletal clock is from master designer John Macfarlane, a BRB regular, responsible as well for The Nutcracker, while the lighting from David Finn adds to the magic. As always the Royal Ballet Sinfonia, under BRB Music Director and conductor Paul Murphy bring the lyrical score to life to complete a memorable production. The premiere back in 2010 replaced traditional festive favourite The Nutcracker that year which did the ballet no favours. As a panto, Cinders really has no serious rival for top spot. As a ballet, with no Christmas or yuletide element in sight, it was being compared with both panto and ballet’s own, well established festive Number One. Moving it away from a Christmas clash with both festive traditions has allowed the ballet to evolve with scenes changed, added or cut to grow into storytelling in dance set to the music of Sergei Prokofiev’s 1945 ballet of the same name. That ballet, incidentally, was reimagined and rechoreographed as a comic ballet for Saddler’s Wells Ballet, at Christmas 1948, with Moira Shearer as Cinderella and Ashton, himself, and Robert Helpmann as the stepsisters – a flavour of the more panto aligned comedy element. Bintley’s Cinderella has its comic moments, with its intellectually challenged stepsisters trying to seduce the prince or cram their unwilling feet into a delicate silver slipper, but the story is told in a classical ballet style well able to take its place in the repertoire alongside the likes of Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty or Prokofiev’s more well known ballet, Romeo and Juliet. Cinderella will be going to the ball at the Hippodrome to 01-03-25. Roger Clarke 19-02-25 Behind the scenes VIDEO of rehearsals with the ballet's creator and choreographer, BRB's former Director, Sir David Bintley (30.02 min) |
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